OTHER_XML: “Provides extra information specific to an execution step of the execution plan. The content of this column is structured using XML because it allows multiple pieces of information to be stored, including the following:

Name of the schema against which the query was parsed.

Release number of the Oracle Database that produced the explain plan.

Hash value associated with the execution plan.

Name (if any) of the outline or the SQL profile used to build the execution plan.

Indication of whether or not dynamic sampling was used to produce the plan.

The outline data, a set of optimizer hints that can be used to regenerate the same plan.

”

Here is a sample of the peeked bind section from my sql with the problem plan:

I’m not sure if the repetition of bind names and positions but not values is normal – one for further investigation.

But bind variable 1 is what I was talking about previously as my date bind with the data skew and we can convert the values back out of their raw value using, for example, the overloaded DBMS_STATS.CONVERT_RAW_VALUE.